I am a person of thorough preparation and cannot for the life of me leave any stone unturned.  I'm ragingly ADD and Type A and have to have all my ducks lined up in a row before I can start anything.  Thus, I would like to address a couple of things here. 

I am a very proud military mom.  My darling, beautiful, tiny little almost 20 year old (in January) is in the Navy on a very focused security detail.  Honestly, I ooze and shout military pride.  Therefore, today's shooting at Ft. Hood, Texas Army Base absolutely broke my heart.  I was once married to a Marine, her father.  My husband served proudly in the Army.  My father was in the Navy.  I love our military men and women and ask that you would all stop and take a moment to keep the victims and their families in your prayers, as well as say a prayer for safety and protection for all our military personnel both stateside and around the world. 

We are also coming up on a time of the year where we remember with thanksgiving all of the blessings in our lives.  We have had quite a momentous year.  I was diagnosed in January with melanoma, the worst kind of skin cancer you can have, fortunately, caught early, according to my surgeon and oncologist.  Surgery and treatment followed and I am so grateful today for health and thank God for each day He gives me.  Please take a moment during this beautiful time of the year (I LOVE fall!) to reflect on what YOU are thankful for and I pray you have many more blessings to come.

I am sooooo excited for the new bridal season of 2010 to begin--obviously, with the above paragraph, my year was a tad interrupted and things had to be shelved.  I had to take much of the year off due to that and a few other things, and for an ADD/Type A person, that's reeeeeealllly hard!  But I have had a chance to get organized and make some really fabulous contacts in the wedding and event industry.  I have learned how to tweet (and amazingly enough, actually have followers!), designed a brand new website (thank you, Go Daddy), have started this blog, got my business page started on facebook, really had a chance to broaden the web presence of Lori Raines Calligraphy Studio and it's been such a wild ride!  Who would have thought that what started with simply an e-mail (oh, I thought I was SO cutting edge with that one e-mail!).

If you are getting married next year, a big congratulations to you and remember this:  It's NEVER too early to get started.  PLEASE do not wait till the last minute if you decide to have your envelopes calligraphed to your guests.  There are few things that make calligraphers want to run for the hills than a bride that will wait until 9 weeks before the wedding with 200 envelopes and want them done YESTERDAY.  And yes, they exist.  Please allow plenty of time for this because I promise you, just assembling the guest list can sometimes take months to do and if your budget, like so many, has been damaged by the economy, you will need to carefully pare it down and at the same time, not offend anyone.  Good luck.  That's hard, but it can be done.  Make the most of your mom's address book and your future MIL's address book.  Denial is not a river in Egypt and denying that the guest list takes time to assemble means that at some point you will be scrambling around and making yourself and everyone around you absolutely miserable. 

If you do want to have your envelopes addressed by a calligrapher, even if you are ready months ahead of time, that's good!  It means your calligrapher will be a happy camper knowing he or she has plenty of time and you won't be tapping your foot wondering when they will be done.  This is a true story:  Five years ago last August, I was in the hospital giving birth to my "surprise" child, Ali.  A bride sent me her envelopes at the very last minute and then called me during LABOR (I do hope she wasn't thinking I was breathing heavy in her ear, I was PANTING)--she called me on my cell phone (mistake number one, giving that out) to see if I was going to be home by Friday to mail her envelopes out.  She was waaaaaaayyyyy behind on schedule and wanted to make sure I was going to be home on Friday to ship her envelopes out.  Alison decided to come on HER schedule and here I was taking a phone call from an antsy bride.  I told her I was going to push EXTRA hard just for her to make sure the baby arrived and I would get home on time.  SHE THANKED ME--I could not believe she took me seriously.  Labor is not a time of great humor, I assure you, but she thought I was totally serious.  Now, life does happen and things interrupt schedules.  I'm just staying, prepare ahead of time.

Again, if you read this and would like to receive a great set of Etiquette Guidelines, I would be VERY happy to e-mail them to you.  They're fabulous and hundreds of brides (I have been privileged to work with around 1,300 brides in all aspects of their weddings over the years) have used them.  I really appreciate your taking the time to ready this--I still can't believe people care about what I have to say!  God bless you, and make planning your wedding FUN.  It shouldn't be any other way!